"whiskey" news and stories

With temps in the teens, and some unexpected snow on the ground, Knob Creek introduced the world to its first single-barrel reserve bottling right at the source, the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont, Kentucky.

A group gathered around seven-generation master distiller, Fred Noe, in one of the distillery's barrel houses, a plank-and-beam structure notable for its 20,000 casks of quietly aging bourbon, and on this particular morning, a distinct lack of heating or insulation. Noe, who traces his lineage back to Colonel Jim Beam himself (the man wasn't a marketing invention), carefully siphoned liquid out of several individually selected American white-oak casks to illustrate the distinction between Knob Creek and Knob Creek Single Barrel. Whereas the former is a blend and bottled at 100 proof, the latter is bottled directly from a single, "sweet" barrel, after being cut down to 120 proof (cask strength is around 130). The effect is an intriguing inconsistency in style that makes opening a bottle something of a throw at the roulette wheel. Of the four barrels we sampled, each had a distinctive profile that sometimes varied dramatically: Beyond the expected vanilla, wood and sweet notes, one skewed more towards a lighter, floral style while another had an unusually sharp, rye-like bite of spice.

While attending the opening of Johnnie Walker's House of Walker private lounge, in New York's Soho, we were fortunate enough to speak with the evening's luminous hostess, Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. Her visage has become increasingly associated with whiskey (with a name like Hendricks, we'd have guessed she'd be a gin girl), whether due to her hosting another Walker event in Los Angeles this summer or because her character, the comely secretary Joan Harris, pours copious amounts of it for all the well-dressed alcoholics on the show. With that in mind, we wondered how she started her not-so-clandestine love affair with Scotch.

"This happened very naturally," Hendricks explained. "It's very sexy when my husband orders a Scotch." That lucky gentleman, actor Geoffrey Arend, was also on hand, and she credits him with introducing her to the drink. "He enjoys it, my male friends really, really enjoy it, but we're introducing it to our lady friends [too]."

For those still unfamiliar with whiskey, Hendricks recommends a professionally led tasting as the best way to learn about the "process, the aging... it's really interesting." Before leaving Hendricks to her hosting duties, we just had to ask: How does she take hers? "On the rocks."

The whisky world has been chattering like mad about designer and researcher James Gilpin's student project -- showcased at London's Royal College of Art's Show 2010, Design Interactions -- which turns the sugar-rich urine of diabetics into a high-end single malt whisky.

The inspiration for Gilpin Family Whisky came from his own life as a type 1 diabetic. His type 2 diabetic grandmother was his first candidate. His project states, "Old people's urine becomes an exportable whisky of high economic value." Large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by type 2 diabetic patients, especially among older people, and Gilpin thinks we should consider using that sugar creatively.

Happy Whiskey Sour Day!

Perhaps the most famous of the sour cocktails -- which at their essence combine liquor with sugar and lemon juice -- whiskey sour is a classic cocktail dating back to 1862, when it first appeared in print in Jerry Thomas's Bartenders Guide. Although such retro drinks were once considered passé, as bartenders across the country revisit the classic sips, the whiskey sour is quickly coming back into style -- the Cocktail Chronicles argue, "While the drink is like a stale Sinatra song, constantly buzzing in the air of a million old dives, the whiskey sour still has a lot to its credit: It's quite easy to make, and it's a reliable fallback for those times when you're in the mood for a drink but can't think of anything else to mix, or when the only things in the house are whiskey, lemons and sugar."

Although these days most bars use commercially prepared sour mixes, you'll find extra fresh tartness by concocting the drink from scratch. Follow the directions below for the original whiskey sour recipe, borrowed from the original Bartenders Guide:

Using a small bar glass, dissolve one heaping teaspoonful of powdered sugar in a drop of seltzer water. Add the juice of half a lemon and a wine glass full of rye or bourbon whiskey and shake all ingredients together with shaved ice. Strain into a claret glass and ornament with fresh berries.

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Not long after he wrapped up the Revolutionary War, George Washington headed back to his 8000-acre plantation known as Mount Vernon, where he hoped to further develop a self-sustaining agricultural business. A few years later, with the arrival of a Scottish plantation manager named James Anderson, ole George was convinced that in order to increase cash flow, he needed to start making whiskey. So he built a distillery.

He started distilling in 1797 and within a year his operation was one of the largest in the new nation. Distilling whiskey was a natural fit for a plantation that already milled its own grain and operated a cooper shop making barrels. In 1797 the operation produced 600 gallons of spirit; in 1798, the production grew to 4,500 gallons. By 1799, Mount Vernon had nearly 11,000 gallons flowing.

Washington died not long after, and without his leadership, business slowed considerably. In 1814, the distillery burned to the ground.